Dublin Life & Culture.

Thomas O’Leary of Armstong Street, Harolds Cross

Thomas O’Leary was a 22-year-old Dubliner and member of the anti-Treaty IRA when he was shot dead by the Free State Army in March 1923. There is a worn out monument, erected in 1933, to mark the spot where his body was found. We have previously covered the following Republicans who were killed during the final year of the Civil War – Noel Lemass, William Graham and James Spain.

With the 90th anniversary of his death around the corner, we thought it would be fitting to look at the short life of Thomas O’Leary, an IRA man attached to the 4th Battalion in Dublin. Thomas, or Tommy as he was known to his comrades, was found riddled with 22 bullets – one for every year he lived. There is a small, extremely worn Celtic Cross to mark the spot where his body is found in Rathmines. Perhaps this would be a good time to restore it.

Thomas was born in December 1900 to Thomas O’Leary Sr. from Dublin and his wife Jane from Kildare. The 1901 census shows that the family were living at 372 Darley Street in Harold’s Cross. Thomas (30) was a glass cutter while his wife Jane (30) looked after their infant son. All were Roman Catholic.

1901 census return for the O’Leary family

Ten years later the family had moved around the corner to 17 Armstrong Street. The 1911 census tells us that Thomas Sr. (40), still a glass cutter, and his wife Jane (40) were now living with their three sons. These being Thomas (10), John (8) and William (6). All three were at school.

1911 census return for the O’Leary family

Stephen Keys, a member of the IRA in Dublin from 1918 – 1924 mentions O’Leary in his Witness Statement :

Any time Tommy O’Leary, 0/C 4th Battalion Column, had a job, he would ask me to give him a hand with. it. We went out to Thomas St. for an ambush. There was a Free State private car coming up at the Church, with two or three officers in it. I was with O’Leary. The others fired at the car. I did not fire a shot. – BHM WS 1209

At the time of his death in 1922, Thomas O’Leary was listed as living at 17 Armstrong Street which corresponds with the census records. In the subsequent inquest, he was described as a “most respectable young man, a fine specimen of manhood, who, in the days of the ‘Black and Tans’, was a member of the IRA and did his duty to his country”. His brother testified that he had remained a member of the Republican Army after the split and was on active service in the months leading up to his murder. His mother revealed that he hadn’t been living at home since July 1922 and that he left his job as tram conductor on the Clonskeagh line in early 1923.

Deirdre Kelly in her book ‘Four roads to Dublin: the history of Rathmines, Ranelagh and Leeson Street’ points to O’Leary as the man who killed Free State politician Seamus O’Dwyer in his Rathmines shop in January 1923. However, Ulick O’Connor stresses in his biography of Oliver St. Gogarty that “members of the anti-Treaty group deny that O’Leary was associated with the O’Dwyer shooting”.

In the weeks leading up to the incident, the O’Leary home in Harold’s Cross was raided at least three times. His mother testified that during a search on the Sunday before, the soldiers told her that Thomas had until “Wednesday to give himself up, and, if they did not, she would fund him in Clondalkin or Bluebell shot; the next time he would be brought to her in a wooden box”. This is exactly what happened.

On the day of his death, his IRA comrade Stephen Kelly remember that:

O’Leary was after dyeing his hair red. We left the house and went over to the gardener’s tool house in St. Patrick’s Park which was used to store clothes before being sent down to the I.R.A. in the country. The man in charge of the tool house was sympathetic to the cause. O’Leary went back to Harper’s that evening and the Free State came along to raid it. They knocked at the door. One of the women was sick in bed. One of the Harpers called O’Leary and said “Go and get into the bed”. He got into the bed beside her. She was so stout, and he was so small and thin that he he was covered up in the bed beside her. He got away that time.

It was that night that the Free State finally caught up with him. On the 23rd March 1923, three lorry loads of Free State soldiers raided a house on Upper Rathmines and found O’Leary. This house was either number 82 or 86 as a woman at number 84 was reported as hearing knocking and a commotion “two doors away”.

From reading all the contemporary newspaper reports, it can be accepted that O’Leary made a run for it and was caught by Free State soldiers. His body was found the following morning on the Upper Rathmines Road at the gates of the Tranquilla Convent.

Map showing the location of Tranquila Convent where the body was found

Dr. Murphy, House Surgeon of Meath Hospital said they found “22 circular wounds” in his body. These included:

Three … in the head … one in the region of the ear … four bullets under the skin … three wounds in the thigh … one on the right side of the chest

Near the body, they found eight spent automatic revolver cases, four large spent revolver cases and three small ones.

The Freeman’s Journal. 24 March 1923.

The jury at the subsequent inquiry came to the conclusion that O’Leary was “murdered by persons unknown … by armed forces, and that the military did not give us sufficient assistance to investigate the case.”. They ended by offering their “sympathy to the relatives of the deceased”.

In quite an interesting turn of events, poet and politician Oliver St. John Gogarty named O’Leary as the leader of the IRA men who kidnapped him on 20th January 1923. While having a bath after a long day’s work Gogarty, then a Free State senator, was taken away by six armed men. His biographer Ulick O’Connor wrote:

As he got into the car, the revolver was pressed hard into his back. ‘Isn’t it a good thing to die in a flash, Senator’ one of the gunman, said, as they sped out along the Chapeliziod road.

Gogarty was held in an empty house on the banks of the Liffey, near the Salmon Weir. On the pretext of an urgent call of nature, he was asked to be taken outside where he then made the quite daring decision to jump into the River Liffey. Shots were fired at him as he swam away. He eventually made it to the police barracks in the Phoenix Park.

His exploits were celebrated in a popular ballad of the day, written by William Dawson, which ended as followed:

Cried Oliver St. John Gogarty, ‘A Senator am I’
The rebels I’ve treicked, the river I’ve swum, and sorra the word’s a lie’.
As they clad and fed the hero bold, said the sergeant with a wink:
‘Faith then, Oliver St. John Gogarty, ye’ve too much bounce to sink’

While he got the dates slightly mixed up (O’Leary was killed a couple of months, not a couple of days) after his kidnapping, Gogarty is obviously referring to him in his autobiography:

“My kidnaping would not have been believed had the government boys not found my coat. A few days later a man called with a bullet, evidently from a .38, its nose somewhat bent. It was dug out of the spine of the ringleader who had raided my house and carried me off. O’Leary was his name. He was a tram conductor on the Clonskea line. He had died to a flash shrieking inappropriately under the wall of the Tranquilla Convent in Upper Rathmines.”

In March 1933, approximately ten years later, IRA quartermaster general Sean Russell unveiled a small marker at the spot where his body was found in Rathmines.

Hi I’m really enjoying your blog posts since I subscribed to them. I got your book at Christmas and found it very interesting also. I am a primary school teacher in bluebell near inchicore and was wondering have you ever done a piece on Bernard Curtis who I believe was killed by his own mine in 1922/23 and after whom the bluebell flats are called after? Or have you done any pieces on bluebell in general? I would be interested in doing some local history with my 6th class but it’s hard to find any info.

Thanks for the comment. We’ve haven’t featured Bernard Curtis yet and I don’t believe we’ve covered any Bluebell history on the blog so far.

However, I’ve been told that there is a lot of info on Bernard and IRA activity in Bluebell in the book ‘Sleep Soldier, Sleep’ by Diarmuid O’Connor. The author’s uncle Padraig O’Connor was a Volunteer in the area and played an active role in the Civil War.

A lot of people seem to have died for Seamus Dwyer’s assassination. Frank Lawlor, killed in December 1922 and Bobby Bondfield in March 1923 were at least two other reprisal killings in addition (apparently to Thomas O’Leary).

@Colm O’Donovan – here is some information about Bernard Curtis of Bluebell

Attack on Oriel House

Joseph O’Connor WS 0544 – p. 20

“The publication of the manifesto and my part in it intensified the hunt for me and my officers, but we were able to give as good as we got. Oriel House in Westland Row was headquarters for the new Free State force known as the C.I.D. They were very active and were causing a lot of trouble. I issued instructions that this post was to be destroyed. The Engineers got on the job but after all the risks when the bomb was placed in position it failed to explode. Shortly after, I gave the task to that splendid officer, Bob Moore, O/C. “G” Company. There was a machine-gun posted on the first stair landing, immediately covering the front door. This had been made the only entrance as a result of our previous effort. A trained gunner was on duty day and night sitting behind this gun. Our plan was to send two men into the hall; after one minute they were to shoot or bomb the gunner, the attacking party would then rush in and finish the job. This plan was put into action, but the first shots failed to get the gunner, and as the remainder of us reached the hall the machine-gun was in full action. Our twenty men, four of whom were to remain outside to prevent a surprise attack, were armed with revolvers and hand-grenades whilst the defenders had the prepared position, the machine-gun, and an abundance of small arms. We had to beat a hasty retreat, followed immediately by strong Free State forces. They captured four of our men, who were, I think, the first prisoners to be shot under the new order for carrying firearms.”

The four men captured were James Fisher, Peter Cassidy, Richard Twohig and John Gaffney. They were executed in Kilmainham Jail on November 17th 1922. They were the first executions carried out by the Provisional Government under the new Army Emergency Powers legislation. This bill, known as the ‘Murder Bill’ by republicans, was passed by the Provisional Government on 15th October 1922 after being proposed by Richard Mulcahy, Minister for Defence and seconded by Eoin McNeill, Minister for Education. The bill gave military courts a wide range of powers including that of execution for offences such as possessing arm or aiding and abetting attacks on Free State forces.

On the following day, 18th November, Dublin Brigade Captain Thomas Maguire and three volunteers, Paddy J Egan, Bernard Curtis and Thomas Phelan were killed in a premature landmine explosion at the Naas Road, Inchicore. Their intended target was a two-lorry convoy of Free State troops from Baldonnel that arrived on the scene about ten minutes later. The attack was intended to be carried out in retaliation for the execution of the four men the previous day.

Hi Anthony, I am researching a distant relative of mine, Robert Bonfield, who was a friend and comrade of Tommy O’Leary. I have found out quite a bit about their activities, if you would like to get in touch my email address is mckennam at gmail. Com

[…] of the men who kidnapped Gogarty? One of the men has been covered before on the site here, Thomas O’Leary of Harolds Cross. He was later to die at the hands of Free State soldiers, and a small memorial on the Upper […]

I knew the nephew of one of the lads blown-up at the Naas road (Maguire). The family were told by the Free State Army to go and collect what remained of his body. To do this they hired a handcart from Granby Handcarts at the back of Parnell Square. They then collected the remains and had him buried in a proper manner.

Tomas O’Leary’s brother said that every bone in his brother’s body had been broken before they murdered him.

I doubt that they had time to break every bone in his body Vincent. From the reports of the neighbours it sounds like O’Leary was killed very quickly after they heard a truck approach the area. He was hit by 21 bullets though (one for each year of his life, coincidentaly) which would have caused a huge amount of damage and probably accounts for his brother’s claims. But whoever it was, FSA or Oriel House they really wanted to get him and made no mistake about it when they caught up with him.

There is a very clear reason why the FS was after O’Leary, he was responsible for the execution of FSA Private Henery Kavanagh who was pulled off a tram at Charlemount Bridge and shot in cold blood on the 14th March 1923. O’Leary was a tram driver and was recognised…which would explain why he dyed his hair red and was trying to get out of the city. O’Leary’s ASU was also responsible for the killing on Bride Street the following day of Vol. John Nolan of the Railway Maintenance Corp. Nolan was a married man with 5 children.

Kavanagh and Nolan were killed in retaliation for the execution of anti-Treaty IRA volunteer James O’Rourke who was caught during an IRA attack on Jury’s Hotel.

Senseless killings leading to senseless killings, it was a case of tit-for-tat on both sides.

Any comment on the statement in O’Dwyers book that Murray was the leader of the Free State assassins in the Dublin area? Willie Roe states that Murray and Conroy mistakenly shot the Jewish man in Stephens Green in 1924 for him (Roe). Murray figured in the deaths of Noel Lemass and Joe Bergin also.

Anyone have information on Murray for 192/21?

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Come Here To Me! wrote:

> mckennam1 commented: “I doubt that they had time to break every bone in > his body Vincent. From the reports of the neighbours it sounds like O’Leary > was killed very quickly after they heard a truck approach the area. He was > hit by 21 bullets though (one for each year of his lif” >